A modern electronic system often includes a variety of electronic modules that cooperate to provide rich functions for the overall system. For example, a car as a modern electronic system includes electronic modules such as climate control system, power window control system, steering control system, sensors, air bag safety system, and audio system, etc. Each electronic module is connected to a power line to receive power from a centralized power source, e.g., a direct current (DC) power source such as a battery. To cooperate with each other, the electronic modules can communicate with each other over a separate network of wires interconnecting the different electronic modules. Communicating over the separate network of wires can be reliable, but such a scheme can be costly due to the need to provide the network of wires and dedicated communication interfaces. In some cases, providing wires to interconnect the electronic modules is not possible or convenient.
To overcome this problem, power line carrier (or sometimes known as “power line communication”) technologies have been developed to allow electronic modules to communicate over the power line which already interconnects the electronic modules to each other. The present disclosure refers to power line carrier or power line communication simply as PLC. PLC operates by allowing data to be carried over the power line which is also simultaneously used for delivering power to the electronic modules. One example technology used in households is X10, which can be used for different appliances to communicate with each other in a home. For instance, X10 allows temperature readings to be transmitted from one thermostat in one part of a home over the power line to a climate control system in another part of the home. In this example, the power source is an alternating (AC) power source instead of a DC power source (note that PLC can be used for DC and AC power lines).